Read Between The Lines
by KartheyM
Summary: The Bücherwurm (bookerverm) originates from a bookstore run by a Kinderphantasie; anyone who reads a book purchased there is infected, and the worm burrows into his brain, allowing the Kinderphantasie to feed on his imagination, incorporate him as a character in a tragic story, and control him. The victim dies either in the story, or when the worm finally consumes his entire brain.
1. Chapter 1: The Hiker's Discovery

_*A/N: This takes place around the beginning of Season 2, before the story arc kicks into high gear, but Hank is by now familiar with the Wesen world.  
_

_"She possessed courage, wit, and penetration. She had read much, and had so admirable a memory, that she never forgot any thing she had read."_

"Jack, wait up!"

"Come on, Gloria, you're almost there! Just around this bend and we can find a clearing to camp in." Jack paused and leaned on his hiking stick to wait for his girlfriend. She huffed as she tromped her way toward him in the Carhartt hiking boots that made her look like Bigfoot. She stopped beside him and took a swig from her Camelbak.

"Ugh, now I'm sweaty and cold," she glanced around at the trees as she untied her flannel shirt from around her waist and slipped it on over her tanktop. "Are we almost to the Falls?"

Jack brushed a lock of his unruly brown hair out of his face and consulted his map. "Angel's Rest should be just ahead," he informed her, pointing to the red X that marked their destination. "I promise, the view will be worth it!" He put an arm around Gloria's shoulders and congratulated her with a kiss. "You're doing awesome, for your first hike!"

Gloria adjusted the bulky pack on her back. "Yeah, these packs really distribute the weight well. Good find, honey!"

Jack nodded and the couple continued on the trail, "I gotta hand it to REI; those Annual Garage Sales are certainly worth getting up at the crack of dawn for!"

Ten minutes later, Jack and Gloria stood on the crest in awe, gazing on the Columbia Gorge in the setting sun.

"Oh man!" Gloria dropped her pack and sat at a picnic table to rest her throbbing legs. "You were right, Jack," she said, looking around, "this place is—" she stopped as her eye fell on something strange.

"This place is what?" Jack walked over to join her.

Gloria stood as Jack approached, her eyes fixed on something obscured by the trees. She walked closer to investigate.

"What is it?" Jack asked her.

Gloria passed through the trees, and the object came into view: a tent, very old by the looks of it. The drab green-grey color almost blended in with the surroundings, especially in the dying light. Needles from the trees had fallen in piles over the top, and even a moss-laden tree branch. Gloria pulled out her flashlight and shined it over the area. "I wonder who left this here?" she murmured to Jack.

Jack switched on his own flashlight. "Whoever it was, he probably isn't around here any more," he surmised.

"Maybe we could use it," Gloria suggested as she unzipped the door and peeked inside.

Instantly she reeled back with a bloodcurdling scream.


	2. Chapter 2: The Mystery Hiker

Nick Burkhardt and Hank Griffin glanced around dubiously as a Forestry Service cart deposited them at the crest of Angel's Rest. Two hikers sat at the picnic table, obviously shaken. The girl—a blonde in her mid-twenties, of slight but evidently durable build—sobbed uncontrollably, obviously still traumatized by what she had seen the previous evening. Her boyfriend, a young man about the same age with shaggy brown hair and the air of an experienced hiker, comforted her.

Nick shook hands with the Columbia ranger who had taken charge of the site.

"Thanks for coming out, you guys," she said soberly.

"What do we have?" Hank asked, getting right down to business.

"Jack Jernegen and Gloria Matthews," she nodded to the couple at the picnic table, "were hiking up to Angel's Rest to spend the night when Gloria found this," she pointed to a tent roped off with crime scene tape. The door of the tent hung open, and Nick caught a whiff that immediately made his eyes water.

"Whoa," he gasped, "what is that?"

He and Hank peeked inside.

The occupant was an older man, tucked comfortably in his sleeping bag as if he went to sleep on a cold night and never woke up. His eyes were closed, and his cheek rested comfortably on his hand. The only thing that made this scene completely unnatural was of course the stench of rotting flesh and supplies, and the deep-grey pallor of the man's gaunt skin. His dark-grey hair hung limply from his head; Nick figured it had probably even grown a bit before the man died. He held his breath against the stench as he examined the man's belongings on the other side of the tent, noting that Hank did the same.

When their observations were done, the two detectives withdrew upwind of the tent to confer.

"What do you think?" Nick asked Hank.

The darker man shrugged, "Old guy, old gear; typical camping stuff, food, a lantern, some maps—and a book."

Nick nodded, "Yeah, I saw the title: _Legend of Sleepy Hollow_."

Hank shook his head, "Too bad it wasn't _Rip van Winkle_; then I would think there was a connection."

Nick glanced back at the tent again. Paramedics were sliding the body out of the tent. "I just can't think of how a guy would just die in his sleep like that."

"Yeah; or why no one would think twice of someone hiking out to Angel's Rest and never coming back again. I mean, who knows how long this guy has been missing?"

"Hey," Nick waved the ranger over, "Tell me, have you seen the vic before?"

The ranger maintained a steady composure as she shook her head, "No, I don't think so; of course, I doubt even his friends would recognize him now. It looks like he's been here for a few years at least." She squinted at the detectives, "Will you be wanting to question the two that found him?"

Nick glanced over at the couple. Gloria glanced in his direction, weariness etched on her face. He shrugged and walked over to them.

"Would either of you know anything about this man, or why he would come up here and die?"

The mention of death made Gloria grimace like she was going to cry again, and Jack shook his head.

"No, we were just making the trip ourselves, on a whim. Gloria had never been hiking and I figured this one would be easy enough for her; it doesn't make any sense that someone would make such an easy hike and just—never come back. We didn't expect to find anyone else out here…" he pressed his lips, "and especially not like this."

"Okay, Jack; thanks," Nick said. "Maybe it would be best if you took Gloria home."

Jack nodded, "Yes, sir, I'll do that right away."

Nick returned to Hank, who had all the dead man's belongings out on the picnic table and was carefully inspecting each one. He glanced ruefully at Nick.

"Jansport backpack, Nalgene waterbottle, still half full."

"So our guy wasn't guzzling water in his last hours; he's probably done a fair amount of hiking, he probably only drank that amount in the time it would take to hike out here."

Hank continued, "Two maps—one of the Gorge, the other of this particular hike; one copy of _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,_ one compass, a scarf, some gloves, some—ugh—unidentifiable food packed in Ziploc bags, a lantern, and a box of matches."

"Not to mention room in the backpack for a Stansport tent and a Northface sleeping bag," Nick added.

"Yeah, so," Hank rubbed his face, "that's enough equipment for a day trip, one night."

"How long ago does the night have to be for him to end up like that?" Nick mused. He picked up the bag and the water-bottle. "Let's get these tested for toxins—maybe this guy had enemies who wanted to take him out without anyone noticing."

"Hey wait," Hank picked up the backpack and withdrew one more item: a multi-tool, still in the package. He held it up and grinned, "Well, whaddaya know; our guy shops at REI. I'll run this down and see how long ago he bought this."

Nick nodded, "I'll see you back at the station."


	3. Chapter 3: Worms on the Brain

Nick delivered the bag and the water to the lab.

"Good timing," Harper said, "I just finished the autopsy."

"So does it look like death by slow poison?" Nick asked.

She shook her head, "Stomach contents didn't turn up anything. What I did find was this." She pulled up the sheet covering the man's head, revealing that she had opened the skull.

"I saw some strange markings leading into the ear canal, and so I thought I'd take a peek to investigate. I found these." Harper showed very little emotion when she pulled out the jar, though Nick imagined with a shudder that she had that weird glint in her eye. He took the jar and nearly dropped it in shock.

The jar contained a worm, one the size of a grapefruit; pasty-white, almost as round as it was long—and still wriggling. Nick struggled to keep the contents of his stomach from crawling up his throat.

"Our guy had that in his _head_?" he gagged.

Harper smirked, "From what I can tell, by the way I found it attached to what was left of his brain stem, it ate his entire brain. _That's _what killed him." She picked up the water bottle, poured some in a paper cup and downed it.

Nick was still fighting the overwhelming nausea. "What kind of animal is it?" He couldn't bear to look at the creature again. "Do you think there could be more?"

"It does look a lot like a leech," Harper observed, "but I've never known a leech that just went after grey matter and not blood."

"So the greyness of this guy's skin—"

"Is the result of dying some time ago, and never moving. All his blood pooled around the back and lower parts of his body. I found extensive bruising, all congealed as the tissue rotted inside the bag. From the state of things, I'd say your guy's been dead upwards of, oh, six months or so."

Nick shook his head; usually a death this bizarre was the result of a Wesen, but there had been no creature involved, to his knowledge, nothing about any sort of worm in any of the books—and the strange-looking grub was certainly the cause of death.

Harper, meanwhile, had taken the grub out of the jar and was now dissecting it.

"Hmm," she remarked.

Nick tried not to look. "What?"

"Well, judging by the various states of decomposition, I'd say this worm consumed the grey matter over an extended period of time."

"So not only does a leech eat his brain," Nick's voice quivered with horror, "it was doing it slowly?"

Harper laid down her scalpel and pliers. "Looks to be that way; I'd say your guy had the worm in his head probably before he went hiking. I don't know if that helps—"

Just then, Nick's phone rang. He used it as an excuse to leave Harper to her dissecting.

"This is Nick."

"Nick?" It was Hank. "I just finished at REI. Get this: our guy was just there buying some new gear a few weeks ago."

Nick stopped on the steps of the Medical Examiner building. "Wait, did you say _weeks_? Hank, that carcass looked like it had been there for years! Even Harper said all the blood congealed at his back, because he was dead for so long."

"Hey, man, I don't know anything about that, but I got a name for our guy: Alden Hoffman, REI member since 1978."

"Okay, that fits our theory about a seasoned hiker. Oh, by the way, Hank, you should know: our vic got his brains eaten out by a gigantic leech."

"You've gotta be kidding me!"

"Nope; Harper even had the consideration to show it to me."

"Yeah, she's nice like that." Nick heard Wu's voice in the background as Hank broke off momentarily. He returned, "Hey Nick?"

"Yeah, still here."

"Meet me at the Governor. Wu says there's some kind of disturbance going down, and they need our help."

"All right, I'm on my way."

By the time Nick arrived, Hank had just finished talking with Sgt. Franco. The two detectives entered the hotel together.

"She's up here," the manager beckoned them to the seating area. Nick and Hank crossed the room to find a woman dressed as hotel staff laid out on the low couch against the back wall. Her hands seemed to have a life of their own, moving and snatching as if gathering objects.

"What's wrong with her?" Nick asked.

The hotel manager looked up and shrugged, "There have been a few complaints about things going missing, but most of them turned up again, so I never thought much about it. Then…" he sighed and scratched the back of his head with a wry expression. "_This _happened."

Nick looked down at the maid, whose head lolled from side to side in some sort of seizure.

"She was going about her duties, as far as I know, then one of the staffers caught her coming out of one of the rooms with an armload of stuff. Security checked her cart and her room, and found more things. She was just going from room to room collecting items—a couple times right in front of the guests! We got her restrained and lying here, but we can't figure out what the problem is."

"What's her name?" Nick asked, watching the poor young woman's movements become increasingly frantic.

"Joyce," the manager answered.

"Joyce?" Nick tried speaking to her, "Joyce, can you hear me?"

Joyce's eyes darted back and forth, and she began to softly whimper.

Hank bent close to her head and squinted, "Hey, Nick," he said, pointing to her ear, "Check this out."

Nick inspected the area. Her ear was red and swollen, and was it his imagination or did he see something wriggling in the canal?

"Okay," Nick jumped to action, "We need to get this woman to a hospital. The arrest can come later." The manager nodded and grabbed the telephone to call 9-1-1.

Doctors soon confirmed that Joyce indeed had a large white worm gnawing away at her brain tissue from inside her ear canal. The operation took several hours, but they were able to successfully remove the creature with surprisingly little tissue damage. The two detectives returned to the station to report the incident.

Hank blinked pensively at his computer screen.

Nick noticed, "What?"

"Man, I don't know," Hank murmured, squirming uncomfortably in his chair. "You think—I mean, is it possible…"

Nick understood; only one subject in the world made Hank this uneasy. "Possible that what?"

"Well, like…maybe a creature-thing is doing this? I mean, the guy in the tent, the maid in the hotel—it's too similar not to be linked."

Nick shrugged, "I don't know; let's compare known associates to see if any names match."

Nearly two hours later, the two partners agreed that there seemed to be little possible connection between Joyce and Alden. They could not even find a mutual acquaintance between the two. Joyce had moved to Portland from Maryland not long ago, and had been working at the Governor Hotel since her arrival. Alden had grown up in the Northwest, spending almost his entire life in the Portland area. The only detail that seemed to connect the two was the huge white worms in their skulls.

Nick tossed his hands up. "Well, that takes care of that theory," he grunted.

"I guess we won't know how these two connect until we figure out where the worms come from," Hank hinted.

Nick nodded, "I guess so; I'll hit the books tonight to see what I can find."

"All right," Hank stood and grabbed his jacket, "See you in the morning, partner."

Nick nodded, closing down the last few programs on his computer. "Let's hope nobody dies tonight."

"Yeah right…" Hank left the office.

Nick scanned through the information amassed on Joyce. Among her meager belongings was a French version of the book _Treasure Island, _inscribed with the note "_Pour mon beau cousin Joyce, de Monique."_ Nick wondered dimly as he left if the title's suggestion had started the sudden larceny streak in her worm-ingested brain; if so, what sort of compulsive behaviors might Alden have shown before his death?


	4. Chapter 4: Till Death Do Us Part

The next day, Captain Renard met the two detectives as they came in.  
"Have we figured out what is causing this problem?" he asked.  
Nick shook his head, "No, sir; Alden and Joyce lived at opposite ends of the city, their families didn't even know each other, they didn't even shop at the same places. Harper found out that this particular worm seems to come from something wood-based, but what that could be is anybody's guess."  
Renard accepted this report impassively. "I just got a call from a very good friend of mine. She mentioned some kind of disturbance going on over in the Belmont area. I'll tell Wu to text you the address, but I think you should start heading out there as soon as possible." Renard glanced from one detective to the other, "Something tells me that there is more to this situation than meets the eye." With that cryptic comment, he departed to his office.  
Nick and Hank glanced warily at each other before heading to the motor pool.

Neither could believe their eyes as they followed directions to the address and pulled up in front of a large castle, in the middle of a quiet neighborhood.  
"Are you sure this is the place?" Nick asked. The area seemed relatively quiet, except for the ribbons, streamers and flowers waving in the breeze.  
Hank checked his phone, "The corner of Taylor and 32nd Street, it says. We need to look for a Kaylie Porter."  
Nick glanced up and down the block. "Who would have thought there would be a random castle, right in the middle of Portland?" he mused.  
"I don't know about you, man," Hank muttered as they pulled open the huge door and stepped inside, "But I have a feeling that after today, we can both say we've seen everything."

Nick listened to the chatter going on all over the place. From where they stood, at the foot of one flight of stairs that led to the main area, and the top of another that led to the basement, they could hear everything going on both topside and underneath.

A harried-looking woman bustled out of an upper doorway, clipboard in hand. She stopped when she saw the detectives.  
"What can I do for you?" she asked, with a strange bob of her head.  
"Portland Police," Nick said, "We're looking for Kaylie Porter; do you know where we can find her?"  
The woman, whose nametag identified her as Amelie DeBalia, bobbed her head again and demanded, "What's she done?"  
Before either detective could answer, a brunette in a lovely brown shirtdress appeared on the basement steps.  
"Oh! Did Captain Renard send you?" she gasped, eyeing Amelie suspiciously. "I'm Kaylie; come down here."  
"Remember, Kaylie," Amelie hollered after her, "Mr. Chase wants Tessa and Gordon up in the sanctuary at three o'clock sharp to begin the rehearsal."  
"Yes, I know," Kaylie muttered.

Nick and Hank followed her down the steps. The wedding party moved silently, getting things prepared for the coming wedding. The bridesmaids checked hair and made sure the dresses were all accounted for, while the groomsmen stood around and watched them.  
Kaylie caught the best man. "Jordan, how's Tessa?" Genuine concern filled her eyes.  
Jordan shrugged. "Crying in her suite again. She won't let anyone in."  
Delicious smells wafted from the kitchen immediately to their left.  
Kaylie meandered past the oblivious bridesmaids to a small room that most likely served as the church nursery.

"What's going on here?" Nick asked.  
Kaylie gnawed her lip, "This is what I called about." She pointed to the area outside, "This is the disturbance."  
Nick shook his head. "I'm sorry Kaylie; to me this looks like a wedding."  
"Detective," Kaylie looked concerned, "Tessa is my cousin! We've grown up together! She is not the type to date a guy for two weeks and then agree to marry him!"  
"Now, I understand your concern but—"  
Hank held up a hand, "Wait, did you say two weeks?" He looked at Nick, "Man, that seems fast even for me!"  
Nick looked from his partner to the worried young woman.  
"Okay, I'll bite," he conceded, "Start from the beginning."  
"Two weeks ago, Tessa wasn't even thinking about starting a relationship. She was getting ready to go on a missions trip with a local ministry. She was happy, energetic," Kaylie shot Nick a look, "and very single," she emphasized each syllable. "Last I heard she was going to a party with her book club or something. All of a sudden I get an invitation in the mail to attend her wedding to a guy I'd never even heard of!"  
A commotion outside interrupted the strange account. Nick cracked the top half of the split door and saw a tall man speaking forcefully to a set of folding doors dubbed the "Bride Suite."  
"You're coming out of there," the man ordered, "and you're going through with the ceremony if I have to drag you all the way!"  
An older woman tugged at the man's sleeve.  
"Perchance I may speak with her, Bertram," she offered, "As her oldest and wisest friend, she would do well to heed my words. Certainly she shall have no cause to turn me away!"  
"Who are they?" Nick asked Kaylie as the woman slipped into the suite.  
"The man is Bertram Chase, the groom's father, and the woman is Lorinda Hopely, Tessa's self-appointed godmother."  
This case-that-might-not-actually-b

e-a-case was becoming more intriguing by the minute!  
"Sounds like if anything were to happen, he would be right in the thick of it," Hank noted wryly.  
"Oh, from what his housekeeper says, Bertram normally wouldn't hurt a fly, would rarely raise his voice," she hesitated, "until—"  
"Let me guess, until two weeks ago?" Nick was beginning to see the pattern.  
Kaylie confirmed with a nod. The trio watched as Lorinda emerged with the tear-stained bride on her arm, whom she gave to the waiting groom.  
"Everybody get upstairs," Bertram growled.  
Tessa gave the impression of a damsel in distress being delivered from it by her knight in shining armor, the man called Gordon Chase. Her head bobbed against his shoulder, and he nodded in comfort—if that's what it was.  
Nick followed them, his eyes on the couple. He might have just imagined it, but his eyes—high on alert for any sign of a woge—might have caught a weariness in the faces of the wedding party, excluding the groomsmen. Nick waited in the doorway of the sanctuary as the bridesmaids mounted the green-carpeted stage.  
There it was again! The head-bobbing, as if they were all nodding off at once, yet never quite falling asleep.  
"Are the bridesmaids friends of hers?" Nick asked Kaylie.  
"I've never met them," she admitted. "I think they're in her book club."  
Lorinda stood as the matron of honor. One of the girls began rubbing her head and wincing. Kaylie ran up to her.  
"What's wrong?" she asked.  
"I need—my head hurts," the young woman blinked in confusion.  
"Oh, help!" Lorinda cried. As everyone turned, she leaned in just in time to catch the swooning bride.  
Now even Gordon was looking green around the gills.  
Hank nudged Nick, "What do you want to bet all these folks have the worms in their heads?"  
His words galvanized Nick. "All right, everyone," he said aloud, mounting the steps. "My name is Detective Burkhart, I'm investigating an epidemic in the area, I need all those who are feeling nauseous, dizzy, faint, or experiencing headaches to get to the nearest hospital immediately!"  
Sure enough, all the bridesmaids, the bride, the groom, Bertram, and even Miss DeBalia—everyone who had been exhibiting that strange head-bobbing—moved to obey Nick's order. Gordon passed out as soon as he hit the sanctuary floor. The groomsmen remained in their places.  
"What do you want us to do?" Jordan asked Nick.  
Nick surveyed the unfortunate group.  
"Jordan, right?" he extended his hand. "You can call me Nick. I want some of you to drive the sick ones—Tessa and Gordon in particular—to the hospital as fast as you legally can. The rest of you can come with Detective Griffin and myself to the station and help us figure out how this—epidemic—got started."  
"Wait," one of the groomsmen spoke up, "If we're in the car with them, won't we get sick too?"  
Nick shook his head, "It has been confirmed that this… disease is not contagious. You'll be fine. It's your friends that you need to worry about." He began leading the group out to the patrol car. "Tell the hospital to run MRI's!" he called over his shoulder.

All the groomsmen interviewed said about the same thing: Gordon was a solid guy with great parents and a nice life—then he met Tessa and went to pieces.  
"It wasn't all of a sudden, though," one of them said. "They met at a party, and she started inviting him to stuff, and it was just like this obsession kind of," he waved his hands around his head, "took over."  
Nick had to call in some coworkers and subordinates from the store Mr. Chase managed to get an account from them of his sudden change of personality.  
"There wasn't any kind of accident or anything," one man with curly dark hair informed him, "It was like, Friday morning, he was his normal, happy self, and by the evening, some of us could tell there was something bothering him, and by Monday..." the man shuddered, "It was like someone had thrown a switch in him, turning Bert Chase off and letting somebody completely different take control of him."

Both detectives sat at the desk, frowning in thought. The hospital had just called: the ones submitted did indeed have worms leeching their brains. Surgeons were able to save most of the people, but Gordon Chase, Tessa McAllister, and one Frances Hobson had been too far consumed to survive the operation. Hospital administration was worried about the volume of these abnormal cases, and asked the Portland Police to confirm what substance or where these strange, brain-sucking worms came from, but though Nick and Hank had precedent for the infestation, they were no closer to either cause or cure.

Nick and Hank went to visit Bertram in the hospital. His head was shaved and bandaged, but he was already awake, since the worm could be removed easily with minimal invasion.  
"Mr. Chase," Nick announced as he and Hank entered, "My name is Nick Burkhart and this is my partner, Hank Griffin, we're detectives with the Portland Police. I just have to ask you about what happened the weekend two weeks ago, the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth of January?"  
"Twenty-fifth?" Bertram rumbled drowsily, "That would be...oh yes, that nice girl came over to spend time with—" The older man struggled to keep his emotions, but failed upon speaking, "Gordon!" The tears trickled down his trembling face.  
Nick could only imagine the terrible pain of a man losing his son, particularly in the case of a widower losing his only son, but he needed to proceed, and did so as gently as possible. "Did the three of you do anything together?"  
"Well, we had dinner—steak it was, G-g-Gordon cooked it himself. Then he and Tessa went off into the sitting room where Tessa read to us from a book she was reading for her club."  
At this second mention of Tessa's book club, Nick knew there must be a connection. "What book was it?"  
"Well, I think it was something about a murder gone wrong, and a man has to hide the body, but he can't."  
Hank smiled, "The Telltale Heart," he identified the story.  
Bertram nodded, "I guess that was it." He lay back and closed his eyes, "I'm sorry, gentlemen," he said slowly, "I think I'm very tired right now."  
Nick nodded, "We understand; thank you, Mr. Chase." The two detectives took their leave.

Hank saw the sideways glance Nick gave him.  
"What?"  
"The Telltale Heart? Really?"  
Hank shrugged casually, "Highschool stuff, man. That Edgar Allan Poe was a real badass writer."  
The two friends waited for the privacy of the car to discuss the issue at hand.  
"Okay, so a hiker goes off alone, gets his brains sucked out."  
Hank winced at the point-blank statement, but couldn't resist one of his own. "Well, not really out, because his brains never actually left his head, if you know what I mean."  
Nick rolled his eyes, "Whatever; the same day his body is discovered, a maid downtown goes postal and is found to have the same kind of worm in her head."  
"Ha, yeah; lucky we came when we did!"  
"The next day," Nick continued, "we get called out to a wedding rehearsal full of infected people, some of whom die as a result of those same worms."  
"Yeah," Hank referred to his list, "The bride, the groom, and a bridesmaid."  
Nick frowned in thought. "We know it's not ingestion-related, because there is no way these people all ate the same exact thing—and in the case of the wedding, there were a lot of people infested, but only a few died."  
"I still say we could very well have a creature going around sticking worms in peoples' heads," Hank insisted.  
Nick shook his head, "In all these cases, there has not been a single Wesen involved; I should know."  
"And yet," Hank shot back.  
Nick agreed, "And yet, these signs do seem to point to a Wesen." He sighed, "I haven't come across anything like this in any of the books, but I'll talk with Monroe, see what he knows." He climbed out of the car to get into hos own. "Catch you later, Hank."  
Hank waved, "See ya!"


	5. Chapter 5: An Interview With a Blutbad

_A/N: Thanks for reading! I'm getting a lot of squeamish reviews, and I am wondering whether I should up the rating... I'm glad that it's not turning anyone away yet! I promise this is about as bad as it gets...after this it's just the occasional creepiness, not so much about the worms themselves anymore. Enjoy the adventure!-KM_

"Monroe."  
"Hi, it's—"  
"Oh wait!" the Blutbad snapped, "Let me try that again: Wesen Consulting Services—about the only creature in the world stupid enough to actually help a Grimm eradicate his—"  
"All right, all right, I get it!" Nick rolled his eyes. "I just have a question."  
"Why else would you call me?"  
Nick ignored his needling. "Would there be a Wesen associated with worms that you would know of?"  
"Worms? Wait, like what is the worm doing?"  
Nick grimaced at having to explain, "We have four dead, and about as many victims saved from being eaten by worms."  
"Eaten where, exactly? In the stomach?"  
"No, the brain, actually."  
"Oh." Monroe was silent for so long, Nick wondered if he perhaps had gotten sidetracked and left the phone behind. "Hello?"  
"Oh!" The gasp was sudden. "_You have gotta be kidding me!_"  
Nick had never heard so much fear in his friend's voice. "What?"  
"Where there's a Bücherwurm, there's a Kinderphantasie."  
"Where there's a who, there's a what?"  
"Really, Nick? Have you seen the Kinderphantasie yet?"  
Nick's head spun, "Man, I just found out that these mysterious worms showing up were in fact an epidemic, and not just four people dying around the same time. What the heck is a Kinderphantasie?"  
Monroe didn't answer his question. "Tell me, did the victims all know each other? Did they attend anything like a book reading or a club or anything like that?"  
Nick sighed, "No! The only related vics were two of the last three, close friends in a book club."  
"Uh-huh, and where did they get their books?"  
"All over the place—wait," the pieces began falling into place, "Did you say Bookworm? Like all these people got their brains eaten by a bookworm?"  
"Pretty much; they're called Bücherwurmer and yeah, they feed on mental energy."  
"I—" Nick felt his stomach turn at the thought. "I thought bookworms ate _books_."  
Monroe gave a dark laugh, "That's just because they're only found when a person reads a book. But a Bücherwurm doesn't eat books; it eats the mind that _understands_ the book."  
"So what does the Kinder-phantom have to do with it?"  
Monroe sighed, "The Kinderphantasie is the creature responsible for the manifestation of the Bücherwurm. A Bücherwurm only comes out of books that the Kinderphantasie has read. The more familiar he or she is with the book, the faster the Bücherwurm will feed."  
"He or she?" Nick echoed, "Great, so more people are going to die, and until I know what I'm looking for and where—"  
"Dude! The key is in the books, man! Where do people go to get books?"  
Nick rolled his eyes. "I don't know; libraries, bookstores?"  
"Start with the largest group of people reading the same book."  
"Okay, that would be the book club—but what about the others? There were more members of the book club who all had the worms, but only two out of the club—plus one boyfriend who did not regularly attend—were completely consumed by the Bookworm."  
"If even one of them bought the Kinderphantasie's book, and read it aloud to the others, that would reasonably infect them all."  
"Well at least we know it's reasonable!" Nate retorted sarcastically.  
"Okay, don't get all jumpy on me," Monroe challenged him, "Just tell me something: if your ancestors never met a Kinderphantasie, does your aunt have something called Gedankewasser?"  
"Gee-what?"  
"Okay, I guess not; come by the spice shop, I think I saw some on a shelf somewhere. If you're going up against a Kinderphantasie, you're going to need it."  
"What does it do?"  
"Well, I'm not exactly sure, but I'm sure Rosalee has the instructions somewhere. I'll check around while I wait for you."  
"Okay, I'm on my way." Nick hung up. Now all he needed to do was justify himself to his partner.

"You want to _what_, now?" Hank couldn't believe what he was hearing.  
"It's the books, Hank!" Nick tried to be as compelling as possible. "At least one victim each time had to have gotten his or her book from the same place!"  
Hank rubbed his eyes, "Okay, let's find out."

They noted the books found in the victims' possession and tried to find where they got them. In Alden Hoffman's house they found a receipt for his book _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow_, but the store's name was not on the receipt. That narrowed it down to about five independent bookshops in the area.  
Joyce's book was a bit more difficult to track down, since she had received it in New Mexico, mailed to her from her French-Canadian cousin in Quebec. Three long phone calls later, Nick was able to confirm that yes, Monique did buy the book in Portland a few years ago, though she could not say where. "The little green house with the nice books," she repeated, nothing further.  
Hank contacted the surviving members of the book club and procured a list of all the places they searched to find their books, making special note of the places Tessa and Frances visited.  
From there, Hank and Nick compared lists and narrowed the focus down to at least four shops that could have been visited by Alden, Tessa, Frances, and possibly Monique: on the West side, Reading Frenzy and New Renaissance Books; on the East side of the Williamette River lay Title Wave Used Bookstore and Broadway Books.  
"Okay," Nick said, "How about one of us takes West, the other takes East?"  
Hank compared the distances between the two shops on either side.  
"Since you mention it," he remarked with a grin, "I'll take the East side, you can take the West."  
Nick was well aware his partner had left him the longer route. "All right, fine. I have to stop by the spice shop anyway. Let's see if either of them are the 'little green house' Monique mentioned."  
"Let's do this," Hank agreed.


	6. Chapter 6: Nick Burkhart Buys A Book

Nick stepped into the New Rennaissance Bookshop. He saw several other customers perusing the books, but he did not see any _woge_ occur.  
"Whoops!"  
He didn't see the stack of books behind him until they all came crashing down. In the waterfall of literature, he clearly saw a Wesen girl morph, but by the time the books stopped falling and she bent down to pick them up, the woge was over. Nick tried to get a better look at her face under the guise of helping her pick up the books.  
"I'm sorry, I didn't see you," he apologized.  
She gave a small laugh, and he heard her woge again, but she still kept her face out of sight; was she a Hexenbieste, after all?  
He stood with a stack of books in his hand and politely returned them to the stack. "Hi, what's your name?" he asked kindly.  
She smiled, "Mariana," ahe answered, her blond tresses fairly dancing around her face.  
"Tell me, Mariana," Nick kept his voice light, "are you the owner?"  
"Oh, no," Mariana gave a light laugh, "that would be Steve. I just run the register and shelve the books."  
A bell rang, and Mariana glanced toward the front counter, "I'll be with you in a moment!" she called.  
Nick moved on toward the front of the store. He glanced around but did not see anyone who looked like the owner. Nick waited, browsing the shelves but—mindful of Monroe's warning—did not touch any of them. He nudged the vial of Gedankewasser on the inside pocket of his jacket with his elbow, just for comfort.

"Can I help you?" a slow voice asked.  
Nick turned face-to-face with a man slightly shorter and stouter than himself. The man's face gave a small grimace before he morphed into a turtle-like creature. Nick almost felt relief: Steve would be a Genio Innocuo, then; it was safe to say that he was no suspect. But that still left Mariana.  
"A Genio Innocuo in a bookstore," Nick remarked casually, "That's hardly a surprise."  
Steve morphed back to a grey-haired man and chuckled, "No more than seeing a Grimm in a bookstore. Tell me, what is it you're after? I've read every book in this place; I would know if we have what you want."  
Nick peered at Steve closely, "Every book, huh?"  
Steve nodded, "Cover to cover; gotta keep the old noggin spry, that's what!" he dropped his jolly demeanor and sighed. "Truth is, I get so bored sometimes. We don't get much business out here, at least not the—mentally stimulating type, if you know what I mean."  
Nick nodded in understanding. "By the way," he offered, "My name is Nick Burkhart and I am a detective investigating a string of deaths that I believe to be Wesen-related."  
Steve balked at the revelation, "What sort of Wesen?"  
"A Kinderphantasie, I've been told."  
"Kinderphantasien? Here?" Steve showed the first sign of any agitation at all. He calmed quickly, "Wait, told by whom, may I ask?"  
Nick shrugged, "Someone who knows; the point is, we think she might be working in a bookstore somewhere, that's how she picks her victims." Suddenly Nick was aware that someone could very well be listening in on the conversation; was it Mariana or could the Kinderphantasie actually be a customer at any of these stores? He dropped his voice.  
"Tell me, do you know what kind of Wesen Mariana is?"  
"My niece?" Steve responded immediately.  
Nick blinked, "She's your niece? I couldn't tell."  
"Yes," Steve sighed, "she hates to woge, especially in front of strangers. That's why she offered to help me at the front of the shop, so she could practice controlling it." He winked, "I dare say she's gotten very good at it, eh?"  
If Mariana and Steve were related, that would mean they were the same species. But Nick had been sure that this would have been the place. He pulled out the list of books.  
"Steve, would you happen to have your sales history handy, so I can find out if these books were purchased at your store?"  
"Let me see that," Steve accepted the list, where Nick had listed the titles and the date of purchase as printed on the receipt.  
"Hmm, Rip Van Winkle, yes; I remember a pretty young French girl buying that... Hmm, I remember we carried copies of Sleepy Hollow, but perhaps Mariana sold that book; she had just started working with me then... Hmm, oh yes, quite a lot of people came in that week for copies of the same book. We had to turn quite a lot of them away, as I recall." He chuckled, "Must have been a book club or something."  
Nick sighed and took the list back. "So you have no idea if a Kinderphantasie has come into the shop before then and perhaps got itself familiar with any of your books before they were purchased at these times?"  
Steve shook his head, "Oh, certainly not; no, I worked every day at this counter before Mariana came, and I knew every customer by heart."  
Something about Steve particularly annoyed Nick, and he decided it was time to move on. "Thanks for the info, Steve," he said, "but just to be on the safe side, would you mind closing down early and holding off selling any more books till we can establish which ones have Bücherwurms?"  
Steve shrugged, "I think we can take a holiday for a few days, what do you think, Mariana?"  
The young woman smiled at her uncle, "I think that Detective Burkhart should find the real culprit quickly," she turned a hard gaze on Nick, "so you and I won't starve for lack of money, Uncle Steve."  
Nick tried to maintain a positive demeanor in the face of that morbid suggestion. "I'll do my best, Mariana."  
"Good luck, Detective."  
On his way out, Nick passed a man who had come in while they were talking; he carried a copy of House of Seven Gables. Nick paused at the door to see what Mariana would do.  
"I see the sticker says $15," the man said, "but there's writing on some of the pages; can I get it for $10?"  
"We offer good prices on all our books," Steve reprimanded him, "not discounts!"  
"Sir," Mariana added, "I'm sorry to say we won't be selling any more books today. We're closed."  
Nick nodded, satisfied that the pair would support his request.

He called Hank on his way out to Reading Frenzy.  
"How are things going, Hank?"  
"Well, I'm learning more about this Bookworm thing than I ever wanted to know!" Hank responded. "You mean to tell me that the thing that ate the hiker's brain came out of that book he read?"  
"Yeah; I think I found the store where he may have gotten it, but I just wanted to confirm if there is any chance it could be hits on all counts with the other store."  
"Yeah, I don't think I'm going to have much luck at Broadway Books; I'm thinking nobody went east of the river to get their books."  
"Keep looking, just in case," Nick advised him as he approached Reading Frenzy.  
"Will do."  
Nick slipped the phone back into his pocket.  
The inside of the store was lined wall-to-wall with comic books of every variety, catalogued by character and carefully preserved inside plastic sleeves. Nick brushed a finger over a series of 1990 Batman/Catwoman comics.  
"D-d-d-don't—don't t-t-touch that, um," a voice stammered from somewhere in the shop. Nick looked around till he spotted the woged Maushertz.  
"Hi," he said as the poor creature relaxed back into human form, "I'm Nick Burkhart—"  
"I know you!" the Maushertz gasped, "You're the Grimm!"  
"I'm also a cop," Nick added before the man could scurry away. "I'm investigating a case that happens to involve a Wesen that I haven't seen yet, so I'm trying to find out where it might have gone."  
"Well, um, haha," the Maushertz chuckled nervously. He stared at Nick awkwardly for a long time. At last, he ducked his head and stuck out his hand.  
"Darren."  
Nick bit back a laugh as he shook the man's hand, "Good to meet you, Darren."  
The young man looked up in surprise, "It is?"  
"Of course; now about my question—"  
"Oh yes, I get lots of Wesen here," Darren nodded emphatically, "a-at least I think so." He scratched self-consciously behind his ear. "I don't, ah, don't really come out unless absolutely necessary." He hung his head to hide a bright-red face.  
"How do you keep track of merchandise, then?" Nick asked.  
Darren sheepishly pointed at the ceiling. Looking up, Nick saw an army of mirrors and cameras, pointed in all directions—the Maushertz had every inch of his shop under thorough surveillance.  
Nick knew, under normal circumstances, if he knew what he was looking for, this would be the lucky break where he could get footage of the person if any existed. Yet he also knew that cameras didn't work the same as the human eye did; if a Wesen did not intentionally woge, the camera could not record it.  
Nick decided that the only thing he could do was to hazard a warning.  
"Darren, the Wesen I'm looking for is a Kinderphantasie."  
Darren woged and immediately began to hyperventilate. "What? Kinderphantasie? Where? I thought the didn't exist! You mean there's one here?in Portland? In my shop?"  
"Darren," Nick laid a hand on his shoulder, "I haven't seen it yet; can you tell me what it looks like?"  
"Well," Darren's eyes darted back and forth, "I—I might have a picture." He scurried into the back office. Nick tries not to be self-conscious as various customers came in and browsed the shelves.  
Finally, Darren emerged with a comic in hand.  
"Wesen WunderKinder, #143," he announced, "this is how I learned of Kinderphantasien; I had no idea they were real!" He flipped through the book to find the right illustration. "There it is—but I couldn't tell you if it's accurate or not."  
The comic illustrators certainly painted a grisly picture of the creature. In the story, an innocent young boy woged to become a fearsome, spindly Wesen that sort of reminded Nick of the popular depiction of the Green Martian Men: eyes and head were disproportionately large, while the nose, mouth, and chin tapered down very small. The Kinderphantasie ravaged its victims, waiting till the worm consumed their brains and killed them before inserting a long, clawed finger into their ears to withdraw the worm into its own ear. Something happened that Nick couldn't quite understand, and a sort of blue lightning crackled around the Kinderphantasie's head, and he became more powerful than before.  
Nick closed the book; he'd seen enough. "Darren," he said, pulling out a business card, "thanks for showing me this; if you see one of these Kinderphantasien come into your shop, you call me, okay?"  
"Oh, I will, Detective! Thank you!"  
Nick fought discouragement all the way back to the precinct. Hank did not have anything to report.  
"So you found the store where all our vics got their books," Hank mused, "but you didn't find the Whatever that did it?"  
"The owner was a Genio Innocuo, and he runs it with his niece; he identified most of the books," Nick clarified, "and he told me that he'd read every book in the store."  
Hank tossed the pen he was fiddling with onto the desk. "Now, wait a minute; didn't Monroe say that anybody who reads a book that a Kinderphantasie has read gets the Bookworm thing and dies."  
Nick sighed and rubbed his face, "See, that's what I don't get, either! If the Kinderphantasie was at that store, Steve should be dead, or at the very least, catatonic like Joyce was. The fact that he's still alive defies all we know about the Kinderphantasie."  
"Were you able to get a tentative description from them? Has anyone seen the Kinderphantasie?"  
Nick shook his head, "The guy at Reading Frenzy was a Maushertz—"  
"Oh, those guys; paranoid, right?"  
Nick had to laugh at the memory, "Yeah, he had cameras everywhere; the problem is, we're dealing with a Wesen that doesn't scare easy, so there's no need to woge."  
"And if a Wesen doesn't want to be seen, it won't," Hank recalled this tidbit from his discussion with Monroe.  
Nick nodded, "Right; he did show me a picture from one of the comic books of a Kinderphantasie."  
Hank eyed his partner, "You don't sound too thrilled."  
Nick sighed, "We still have no basis for any sort of profile; it could be a girl or a guy."  
"So—young, right?"  
Nick shrugged, "I guess; according to the comics, the Kinderphantasie receives some sort of power from a worm that has eaten a victim's brain." He pondered over this, "Maybe it keeps them young, like the Spinnetod."  
Hank grimaced, "Ugh, don't remind me."  
The two friends shared a chuckle.  
Lights switched off all over the bullpen. Nick surveyed the mountain of evidence against the meager profile they had for this mysterious serial killer. They could only hope it would hold off for the night and wait till morning to strike again. Who knew how many books were infected and bought by unsuspecting readers?


	7. Chapter 7: Reading Between The Lines

On his way into the bullpen, Nick caught up with Deputy Wu.  
"All quiet on the home front?" he asked, fearing the worst.  
"About as quiet as usual," Wu answered. "Say, Chief was asking if you and Hank have made any progress on the attack of the brain-eating worms."  
Nick snorted, "Thanks for making it sound like a cheap horror movie!"  
Wu shrugged, "Just trying to keep things real around here, y'know?"  
Nick shook his head; things were a lot easier when he had a group, or even a renown Wesen to deal with; this time, not even the victims were Wesen, and no one had ever seen the culprit.  
"We have a few leads," he told Wu, "but we're still trying to figure out how it all fits together. Once we get a pattern, we can figure out an MO and start compiling a list of suspects."  
"Yeesh," Wu muttered, "tough break."  
Nick plopped down at his desk, "Tell me about it," he moaned.  
Hank approached with a coffee in each hand. He offered one to Nick.  
"Did you get any sleep last night?" Hank asked.  
Nick shook his head. "Hardly; you?"  
"Not a wink; I made the mistake of stopping by that Wesen comic book store you mentioned, just for a look at what we're dealing with." He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. "Man, that thing is freaky! I kept seeing it every time I closed my eyes."  
"I just can't figure out how it happens!" Nick cried. "We have a bookstore that seems to be ground zero, but both the owners are Genio Innocuo."  
"And yet there have been no further cases since you asked them to close their doors," Hank pointed out.  
"So the Kinderphantasie has to be connected there somehow," Nick proposed, "but how? I know for sure it isn't Steve, and he claimed that he hadn't seen a Kinderphantasie there; but sometimes Mariana is the only one in the shop. Maybe the Kinderphantasie visits and infects books when she is the only one there."  
Hank pondered this. "That would explain why Steve is not infected," he noted, "since all the Kindly-monster would have to do is make sure the infected books are sold before Steve gets back."  
Nick actually perked up at this. "Hank, that's the best theory I've heard all week. Let's check financials for New Renaissance and see if there are any fluctuations in book sales, particularly on the days we know that our victims were there." He opened a new window on the computer and began requesting bank files.

A while later, Nick closed the last file and shook his head.  
"Well, that was a bust!" he grumbled.  
The sales reports of the days they were looking for appeared no different than the other days.  
Hank had even pursued the angle that perhaps there was a specific connection to the books themselves. Each book they had discovered with the victims so far had been of the Gothic genre: Poe, Hawthorne, and Irving were all Gothic authors. After the first few calls to other customers who had bought the same kinds of books (and, in the case of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, the same books), Hank had to conclude that this was a faulty lead as well.  
Nick began pacing the floor. "There is no pattern in the kind of book, which book, the locations of the victims... nothing!"  
Just then, his cellphone rang. Nick picked it up. "Burkhart."  
"Hey Nick," Monroe greeted him, "have you found any good clues yet?"  
"Not really," Nick admitted.  
"Well," the Blutbad chuckled, "I might have something. You've heard of the Arabian Nights, haven't you?"  
"Arabian Nights?" Nick echoed for Hank's benefit. "Yeah—wait, don't tell me Scheherazade was one!"  
"Apparently so."  
"But wasn't her objective not to get killed?"  
"Or maybe it was control over the Sultan. The longer she kept telling her stories, the more the Bücherwurm could eat and eat—"  
"Yeah, okay, I get the picture!" Nick was having memories of that first evening with Harper, and he didn't much appreciate it. "So Scheherazade—is this any indication of how a Kinderphantasie operates?"  
"There must be one place that connects everyone, that people just keep coming back to."  
"As a matter of fact," Nick admitted, "there's a bookstore on 23rd that seemed to be everyone's go-to place."  
"Oh really?"  
"Yeah, but here's the catch: it's run by two Genio Innocuo."  
"That's weird! And all the books came from there?"  
"Yeah, except—" Nick checked the list. "Ah, at least one of the copies of the Poe stories came from Multnomah Library." He blinked and smacked himself on the forehead when he realized what he had just said. "A library! People have to return books as well as check them out, of course!"  
"That sounds more than likely," Monroe agreed.  
"Thanks, Monroe," Nick said, "I have to go return a book."

Nick was almost bursting with confidence as he pulled onto the Morrison Bridge. He'd get to the library, walk up to the front desk, and watch for any sign of a woge as he handed in one of the infected books. He glanced at it, sitting on the passenger seat in the brown envelope, so innocently. He wondered if more than one person could get a worm from reading the exact same book as a victim. Something about it made him not want to try. Something...

Nick squinted ahead. It looked like someone had pulled up onto the curb just before the Naito offramp. He pulled up behind it. The silver Buick was abandoned. Who would leave their car in the middle of a bridge? Nick looked around but saw no one. The cars continued to whiz past. He tried the doors; they were unlocked. Searching the glove compartment, he pulled out the registration.  
"George Brinkley," he read, "Okay, George," Nick muttered to himself, "Where did you go?"  
Nick was careful to stay on the narrow curb as he followed George's likely path down the bridge. He went twenty paces and saw a lone figure—braced outside the railing!  
"George?" Nick called, running toward him. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed Hank.  
"Just listen," he barked, "I've got a jumper on the west side of the Morrison Bridge, just before the offramp. I need some backup now!"  
As he got closer, Nick discovered that George seemed to be muttering something.  
"Father...kids...no father...cast..."  
"George?" he tried to soothe the agitated man, "I'm Nick Burkhart, I'm a detective and I'm here to help you." Recognition kicked in, and Nick knew that this was the same man he'd seen in New Renaissance just the day before!  
"Gone! All gone—lost! Swept...flood tides...Abyss...lost shells—"  
"George," Nick tried to reach for George's hand, but the man shied away and let go. He was weeping now. Nick at last heard sirens as his backup approached. "What is lost?" he asked.  
George finally looked up at Nick. His eyes had that same emptiness that told Nick of the presence of a Bookworm. Slowly, George pulled his hands off the railing as Hank and Franco arrived—on the far side of the bridge.  
"I'm lost!" George whispered frantically, letting go and leaning back over empty space.  
"No!" Nick reached after him, but only managed to slow the man's descent. George hit the ground at the same time Franco and the cops arrived at that spot.  
Franco called it in. "I need an ambulance on the Naito Parkway, northwest of the Morrison Bridge!"  
Hank joined Nick as they walked together down to the parkway to control traffic and survey the scene. "So, another victim?"  
Nick sighed, "Yep; only get this," he turned to face his partner. "That man," he pointed toward Brinkley, whom the police were trying to stabilize till the ambulance got there, "came into the store yesterday, and didn't buy the book."  
Hank frowned. "Didn't?"  
Nick shrugged, "I don't even think he cracked the spine before they refused to sell it to him."  
"How do we know it's a Bookworm, then?"  
"Hank," Nick huffed, "I saw it in his eyes! They were completely empty, like Joyce's had been. He's infected all right."  
By now Nick and Hank had reached the group. George Brinkley was secured on the gurney, and the paramedics prepared to load him onto the ambulance.  
Quickly, Nick palmed his vial of gedankewasser and popped the cork with his fingers. He surreptitiously splashed a small amount in George's right ear. Instantly, a bright foam appeared, and Nick was rewarded with the sight of a cloudy, lumpy liquid—almost like a large amount of pus—seeping from George's ear as they loaded the gurney.  
Nick saw that Hank watched him the whole time.  
"What's that?" Hank asked, pointing to the vial Nick slipped back into his pocket.  
"A cure," Nick answered. "George is going to be fine. All the doctors will have to worry about is the injuries from his fall. Meanwhile," Nick mounted the ramp to return to his car. "I think I need to visit some old friends." He turned back to Hank, "Care to join me after you finish here?"  
Hank nodded, "Will do."  
Nick started the car and continued across the bridge, full of keen determination. He only hoped that his theory was correct, and he could catch the culprit in the act.


	8. Chapter 8: Famous Last Words

Nick pounded on the door of New Renaissance.  
"Steve?" he called, "Mariana?"  
The shop was dark inside. Everything looked exactly as it had when Nick had left it the previous morning. He kept pounding. He could see paper waving at the window near the peak of the roof. Finally, he could see Mariana through the window in front of him, coming out of a door at the back of the store. Nick leaned out of the cover over the porch to look up at the window again. The paper was gone.  
"Yes?" Mariana opened the door. "Detective! What's—"  
"Who's up there?" Nick demanded, blowing past her and weaving between bookshelves to get to that door.  
"What are you talking about? There's no one here but me!"  
"There's someone—" Nick stopped when he realized what she said. "No one but you?" he echoed. "Why? What happened to your uncle?"  
"I'm sorry, I don't—oh, you mean Steve? He, um..." Mariana kept glancing toward the door, obviously trying to insure that she could reach it before he did. "I think he said he had to go get—" her concern for the door consumed her focus away from crafting a convincing lie. "—something," she finished lamely.  
Nick's eyes lit up; he was onto something. "It finally killed him, didn't it? Are you hiding it up there?"  
"Hiding what?" Mariana still stalled. Nick had no doubt that even now, a lone figure was squeezing out of one of the upstairs windows as they spoke. He feinted left and darted right around Mariana, flinging open the door and charging up the steps behind it.  
"The Kinderphantasie!" he called over his shoulder.  
Mariana ran up the stairs behind him. "Kinderphantasie? What—"  
Nick reached that small attic and stopped. He saw a writing desk right in front of the window—the same one visible from the front door. A typewriter sat upon it, surrounded by small stacks of printed pages. Evidence—but no culprit. The window was still closed; where had it gone?  
"Where is it?" he asked Mariana, approaching the writing desk and scanning over the pages, as if to find some clue in the writing. "Where did the Kinderphantasie go?"  
Mariana watched him from the doorway. Fear showed plainly in her wide blue eyes. "Detective, there is no one else here, I've been trying to tell you that!"  
The stories weren't yielding any evidence; one was about a magpie who used magic to turn into a human, but she could not cease her thieving ways, while another used grisly descriptions to describe a naive young girl's marriage into a family of ferocious beasts. Nick picked up a third stack.  
"What's all this?" he asked Mariana.  
"That's my writing," she said, not too pleased that he was reading it. She tried to take it from him. "I finished it ten minutes ago—"  
Nick shrugged her away and kept reading. It appeared to be a story much like "It's A Wonderful Life," without the angelic influence. The story took place on a grey, rainy day, and concluded with the man committing suicide by throwing himself off a bridge into the water. Something about the tale nagged at Nick; in fact, all three stories he'd read so far felt familiar. He read while Mariana watched him. As he neared the end of the last page, the young Wesen moved to take it from him.  
"Well, if you've satisfied your curiosity—"  
"Wait!" Nick pulled the pages back as the phrase "flood tides of the Abyss" caught his eye. How many times today would he see or hear that phrase? He searched out the main dialogue for the story.  
"'How are the kids?' He asked himself, trudging along the highway. 'Why aren't they in school? Where is their father?' Their father was lost; gone, swept away by the flood tides of the Abyss. Surely this shell of a man could not be anyone's father! Perhaps if the shell were broken, the man could emerge. Perhaps the longing spirit would be reborn, if only the worthless coating could be cast down."  
Nick felt a growing sensation of horror enveloping his mind; these were the exact words George Brinkley muttered before throwing himself off the Morrison Bridge. How could she have known? She had the scene down to the detail: the way his body twisted, the position in which it landed—in fact, nearly everything except one noteworthy item.  
Nick stared up at Mariana.  
"He survived," he gasped.  
Mariana's lips quivered, "What?"  
"He survived; Brinkley survived the fall. I was there, I saw him."  
Mariana frowned condescendingly, "Oh, I'm glad to hear it; even though I have no idea what that has to do with me." She smiled innocently at him.  
Nick's mind whirled, "But if he survived when he was meant to die—"  
"What are you muttering about?"  
Nick dove down the stairs, dialing Hank on the way.  
"Hank, it's me; I need you to check on Brinkley. He may still have the worm—"  
"Nick," Hank interrupted solemnly, "Brinkley's dead. Your cure didn't work in time. The worm finished with him ten minutes ago."  
Nick scrambled up the stairs again, even though the effort was giving him a ferocious headache.  
"Mariana!" he called.

She was writing when he came up.  
"Sorry," she murmured over the clatter of the keys, "I don't mean to be rude, but I have this idea just eating away at my brain, and I really must get it all down."  
Suddenly Nick felt another surge of fatigue, and he knew exactly what was going on. "Idea?" he panted, leaning on the doorway.  
"A story about a detective who discovers a witch and comes to a crisis about his former stance on belief in magic, after which he..." she finally lifted her head—still facing away from him—and he heard the smirk in her voice as she finished, "well, I guess you'll have to find out, won't you?"  
Nick could almost hear the worm gnawing away at his mind; he had no doubt it was happening to him just then. He shook his head and rasped out, "How—" before his mouth stopped working properly. He stumbled toward her, coming to rest on a small table near the entrance.  
At last, she stopped typing and sauntered toward him. He dimly saw her head expand in a woge.  
"How did I give you a Bücherwurm? I know how you tried not to even look at any of the books in this store," Mariana giggled. "Did you think that just by reading a book a Kinderphantasie has handled, you would be infected? Ha!" she smiled, "Silly Grimm, it's not the books, it's the writing! Why do you think only some have been infected, and not all? Why was Gordon infected when he hadn't read the book Tessa bought, and how could poor Brinkley suffer so much when the poor man never actually bought anything?" Mariana folded her hands and looked pleased with herself. "It's because they had read words written by me!" She waved her hand loftily. "A slip of paper with some nonsense typed on it and slipped between the pages here, a few words pencilled into the margins there—anything works, it's all very simple." She indulged herself in thought for a moment, while her influence over Nick increased. Finally, she took his hand. "You know," she mused, leading him toward the nearby sofa, "Alden, Joyce, Gordon, Tessa, George, and Frances and all the rest had plenty of imaginative energy; I feel better than I have for decades! For so long I had been reduced to snacking on souls with no imagination whatsoever; the worm ate away and they never even missed it."  
She sat on the couch very close to the near-catatonic Nick, who made no move to acknowledge or resist her.  
"With you it's different, if you don't mind me saying," she chuckled lightly. "You have something that lets you see things other people do not even realize exist; with the amount of imagination it takes to believe what you see, I would never have to feed again."  
Nick's lips moved until the word "typewriter" slowly tumbled out.  
"Why use the typewriter?" Mariana leaned in close, her head swelling with the influx of energy. "I don't mind telling you, since a steady flow of information enhances the potency of the energy I am taking from you now.  
"The stories I write on the typewriter are focused on one person, the one infected with the worm. One of the more unfortunate effects of the Bücherwurm is the removal of free will. In writing my stories, I am merely giving the person a far more exciting way to live until they die as opposed to withering away in an armchair in their one-room apartment."  
Nick's eyes followed her as she crossed the room to stand in front of the window. "I guess you ought to say I'm doing them a favor."  
Nick found his voice again, "Steve."  
"Oh, him?" Mariana chuckled. "I'm not stupid; I knew if word got out about me, eventually one of you cops would come here looking for the owner; how long would you have waited to arrest me if I was the only Wesen working in the store? No; I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Steve hasn't been in his own mind for a very long time; several years, in fact. I keep him alive by keeping his story going. As long as I continue regularly adding to the story, Steve lives on, and I can control him." She scoffed, "Good old Uncle Steve! I am so glad you didn't think that I might be an adopted orphan; in fact, I was pretty much counting on the fact that I was a Genio Innocuo along with him when I made him give that response. As for Steve's mind..." she sighed. "He's lucky his brain is always producing more energy, otherwise my blessed Bücherwurm would have finished him off long ago. See, you've got it all wrong; the worms don't kill the victims by eating their brains; the worms only feed when there's no mental energy left for the worm to absorb right at the surface. If mental activity ceases, the worm just keeps on eating till it begins again—or until there's no tissue left." Mariana gave a slight chuckle and gently batted her saucer-sized eyes at him.  
Nick tried to speak once more, but at first could only manage a small groan.  
"What was that?" Mariana still had her back to him.  
Nick fought to force the words from his mouth.  
"Must...get...typewriter..."  
By the time Mariana registered what he said, Nick launched himself across the room and toward the typewriter.  
"Noo!" she shrieked, warping into full woge as she reached for him.

Nick lunged for the keys, knowing that with the magic imbued into this machine, he could seal his fate in quite a different fashion than Mariana intended for him. Just six words...

He'd only managed the first three before Mariana was on top of him, clawing at his arms and nipping at his head.  
"I'll tear out your brain myself if I have to!" she roared.  
Nick frantically fumbled for the vial of gedankewasser in his pocket.  
"Not if I can help it!" he hissed at her, pouring the liquid in his ear.  
The hissing and popping it made when it came in contact with the worm was amplified by the fact that it was literaly occurring just inside Nick's eardrum. He fended off the attacking Kinderphantasie as the emulsified grub poured out of his ear. Nick felt his mental faculties return, and he fought back against Mariana, keeping her occupied long enough to race back and knock over the writing desk. The typewriter hit the ground with a terrible crash. A blue aura seemed to seep out of it—much like the blue lightning from Darren's comic book. Instantly, Mariana froze in horror.  
"Y-y-you..." she whispered, "I have lost—" she could not speak another word, but stood there looking numbly at him.  
Nick kept waiting for a surprise attack, but none came.  
"Mariana," he announced, "you're under arrest for the murders of Alden Hoffman, Tessa McAllister, Gordon Chase, and Frances Hobson, and the attempted murders of about as many more."  
His words seemed to have no effect on her. She offered her wrists for the handcuffs. "I am under arrest," she repeated his exact words.  
Nick led her downstairs, where Hank and Wu waited for them both.  
The deputy officer stared at the docile young woman led by Nick, who had a black eye, split lip, a torn jacket, and some kind of pus trickling out of one ear.  
"Did she come quietly?" he asked sarcastically.  
Nick shrugged and accepted the ice pack offered by Hank. "She will now," he told Wu.  
"I will now," Mariana faithfully repeated.

Once he saw Mariana safely into the patrol car, Nick returned to the upstairs apartment.  
Hank was pushing the debris with his foot.  
"Musta been one helluva fight," he muttered to Nick.  
"Yeah," Nick agreed, "It was."  
He meandered over to the smashed typewriter and the ending of his story. He'd meant to finish it off with something happily-ever-after, but instead, three words finished the story for him:

"AND HE LIVED."

Nick knew he would have to be satisfied with nothing more than that. Certainly he wouldn't wish for anything less.


	9. Chapter 9: Epilogue?

***N/A: Okay, so I got this idea for an epilogue of sorts... you know, the kind of scene that shows up just when you think the episode has finished, ****_just _****when you think the good guys have won, ****_just _****to make you anxious about what else the bad guys might have up their sleeves... there's nothing after this (unless someone else gets an idea...), I just wrote it out to see what y'all think... -KM**

_Four Weeks Later..._

Officer Kathy Mauvais couldn't resist a slight shiver as she watched the accomplished legal professional turn in the necessary documentation for visits. Straight blonde hair, captivating eyes...and a wide smile that clearly meant nothing good.

The blonde turned in the last form.

"Does this mean I can see my client now?" she asked sweetly.

Kathy glanced at the name on the form: Adalind Schade, attorney from a well-known legal firm. She had filled every blank, and when Kathy ran her name through the system, it came up as clean as could be expected-which is to say, everything remotely incriminating had been either redacted or expunged. Evidently Miss Schade had powerful connections-ones that Kathy might not want to pit her job against. She stamped the document and gave Adalind a visitor's badge.

"Follow me, ma'am," Kathy instructed, "and please do not attempt to interact with any of the other inmates."

Adalind nodded, "I'm just here to see my client. I want to give her something."

"Yes, we've taken the liberty of searching the package. Standard procedure."

That smile again. "I understand."

"This way."

Kathy led Adalind down the maze of hallways, to Cell Block C, Section 8. She bypassed the first two cells and opened the window of the third.

"She is in there. You can see that your client is not being harmed in any way."

"Yes," Adalind allowed and edge to creep into her voice, "you're treating her as well as you can, under the circumstances."

Kathy snorted, "Half of the other prisoners don't want anything to do with her; the rest would pick a fight with just about anybody, so we're already watching their movements closely." She motioned to the hatch in the middle of the door. "I can't unlock her cell, but you can place the package in the hatch, and speak to her."

Adalind laid the envelope she carried on the tray of the door.

"Hello, friend," she murmured to the prisoner, "it's been a while. We've never met, but know that I wish we could have been friends, if only you'd found me first. Here," she pushed the envelope to the other side of the door, within the young inmate's reach, "this should help you make friends. At least it will give you something to pass the time."

The inmate made no move.

Adalind sighed and moved away from the door.

"I guess there's nothing more for me to do," she remarked with a shrug.

"Don't let it get to you," Kathy replied as they made their way back out to the main offices. "She's been relatively stoic since she got here. It's almost like-No, never mind." Kathy waved the thought off as Adalind removed her badge and exited the restricted area.

The gorgeous blonde smiled at Kathy through the bulletproof glass. "What were you going to say about her? You can tell me."

"Well," Kathy stammered, "I don't know anything for sure, but the way she acts, it's like she doesn't have control over her movements, like someone else has control."

Adalind nodded in evident concern, "I see; well, let's hope she regains some normal function soon. Thank you for your assistance."

"Have a good day."

Back in Cell C-8-3, the pitiful inmate with the dirty-blonde hair and impossibly-blue eyes stared at the envelope resting just inches from her toes. At last, she found the will to slowly reach forward and slide her hand into the pre-opened packet. She pulled out a pencil and a stack of paper. She smiled. At the top of the very first page, in small letters that would leave plenty of room for more writing, she wrote her name.

_Mariana._


End file.
